In the End
by Charles Lehmann - Minamorti
Summary: Frida and Manny have found true love in each other, but Black Cuervo won't let the two be together over her dead or Frida's, whatever works body. And it doesn't help that Death keeps on chasing Frida either. Don't read if it offends. Currently on Hiatus.
1. The Beginning of the End

**Disclaimer**: I do not, in any manner, shape or form, own anything that is related to El Tigre, let alone the television show, its characters and story lines themselves, however much I wish I did. But then, if we all got what we wanted in life, then how could we consider ourselves alive at all?

* * *

Time moves in interesting ways. Sometimes the entire fate of a world can be changed by something as seemingly important as long, bloody revolution that results in the freedom of a group of colonies from a smaller group of islands half a world away or as something as seemingly insignificant as a maiden deciding how many lumps she wants in her tea, one or two.

And sometimes, the pants of time opens up, giving us two tunnel to go down. The tunnels may appear to be and in fact are much the same tunnels, may be so mundanely ordinary that the common traveler can't tell that they are coming to a fork in the tunnel, which pants hole they're going down, but ultimately, depending on which tunnel a passenger takes, it could lead to the success of the hero or the victory of the villain, of the survival of an alien race or the death of millions of lives.

And the pants of time opens up everywhere, in all dimensions, even in dimensions where free will is said to nothing but an illusion, as intangible the air in front of your nose and as unreal as a non-homophobic Republican dictator. They even open in the lives of small blue-haired teenagers, such as a one Frida Suárez.

"Beep! Beep! Beep!" went Frida Suárez's alarm clock, which informed her newly awakened, drowsy self that it was approximately 8:30 am. She turned to her calendar, which hung on the wall next to her bedroom door, to see what day it was. It said that it was a Saturday.

Muttering "Stupid alarm clock, waking me up at 8:30 on a _Saturday_," she laid back down to sleep. As she tried to fall asleep, she began to wonder, "Why did my alarm clock go off? I mean, I always turn it off during the weekends, how did I forget to turn it off this time?"

She thought of this for a little while more as sleep reclaimed her, until she began to lightly dream again. However, she wasn't completely asleep. She knew that she was only half-asleep, that there was that faint, annoying feeling that she was still partially conscious, but she stubbornly tried to ignore it and turned over in her half-sleep.

As she dreamed, various images came swimming from her dreams to her half-conscious-self: there were some things familiar, like taquitos, zebra-donkeys, and churros, and some things unfamiliar, strange or outright bizarre: a gold ball, a sound of shrill, high-pitched laughter, and a warm, kindly pale face. These things both comforted Frida and frightened her, in a way that she could not describe. Then, the image of her best friend Manny came to mind.

_Friend_. As if that term could be used anymore. Frida Suarez, age 16, had not only found love in her best friend, Manuel Rivera, but also when she had finally come out to him a few days ago, he actually said that he felt the same and wanted to be her boyfriend.

Naturally, she jumped at the chance. They had even sealed the contract with a kiss. It was a short kiss, without much heat in it, but it still made Frida blush, even now, in her half-sleep.

"Sweet, sweet Manny. Sigh," thought Frida. She continued to think of her new boyfriend, and of her alarm clock, until something in her head clicked, and suddenly it was all clear to her.

FridaSuárez shot of her bed as if she electrical wires underneath her skin had sent 10,000 volts through her.

"Of course!" she thought to herself, as she hurried to change, taking off her fuzzy pink sleep mask and slippers. "How could I forget!? It's Manny's and mine first week anniversary since becoming a couple! Duh! We're supposed to meet at the Ice Cream Parlor at 10:00 to start off our day-long date together!"

Frida changed her clothes, taking off her black-skulled t-shirt and heart-adorned pants and replacing them with her usual clothes, her white-shirt, over-all skirt combo, with her spiky wristbands, goggles and boots. She checked the time. It was 9:42 am. If she ran, she just might make it.

Rushing downstairs, Frida ran through the kitchen, to snag something to eat on the way to the Ice Cream Parlor. She had hoped that there would be nobody in there, so she could just leave the house without any fuss, but this time, the gods didn't look kindly on Frida. Her mother was in the kitchen, frying eggs and toast for her twin sisters, Nikita and Anita, both of whom were, for once, out of their police cadet uniforms and instead, ever the patriots wore red and white pajama shorts and green t-shirts. It was only a mercy that her father wasn't there, waiting for breakfast too.

"He must be at work," Frida thought to herself, before her mother noticed her presence and turned to her while managing to keep an eye on the stove.

"Oh hija, good morning! How are you? Did you sleep well?" asked Carmela with a warm smile.

"Sí, good morning hermana," said Nikita and Anita in unison.

"¡Mamá! I'm fine! And yes, I slept well," said Frida, acting as if she was exasperated, in hopes that would convince her not to ask anymore questions, in fear that she might ask her about Manny, which she _always_ did. Her new relationship with Manny was a secret, as was their day-long date. Of all people, she hated lying to her mother, but she would, if it was for Manny.

"Well, that's nice, hija," said Carmela, not really paying attention.

For once, Frida smiled at her mother's neglect for her youngest child and started to search throughout the kitchen for anything small enough to eat on the go but large enough to be more than a mouthful. However, there didn't seem to be anything to eat in the kitchen that fit that description. There were nothing _edible_ to eat in the cupboards, the pantry was bare and she wasn't going to dare check the refrigerator. The last time she was desperate enough to open that thing she had nearly been eaten by the super-intelligent growth inside.

"Hey, Mom! Is there anything to eat in this house?" asked Frida.

Carmela frowned.

"Well," she said. "You could sit down at the table with your sisters and I could make you some eggs. How would you like them: Sunny-side up or scrambled?"

"But I'm supposed to meet Manny at the Ice Cream Parlor in less than 15 minutes!" cried Frida desperately.

"What? You're hanging out with that Rivera kid again? Hija, you know that your father disapproves of your friendship with that child. He is bad news!" said Carmela.

"Gezz mom! If I did every thing papa told me to do, I'd be one of the prissy little Miss Perfect Junior Police Cadets over there," groaned Frida, motioning towards her sisters.

"Hey! We're not prissy!" protested Nikita and Anita in unison.

"Oh yeah? Then why are you two still wearing your Junior Police Cadet badges on your pajamas?" asked Frida mockingly.

Nikita and Anita, by this time fuming, couldn't come up with anything in their outrage and just boiled.

Carmela said, "Frida, you know better than to bait your sisters like that," lecturing her yet again.

"But they were just asking for it!" said Frida.

"Still, that is no reason to insult your sisters like that."

Grumbling in response, Frida turned back to the kitchen cabinets. "Are you sure we don't haveanything to eat Mom? Anything I can carry with me on the go?"

"Not really, no. But, hija, I still don't want you to go out with Manny today. We had plans to go out shopping for clothes since the start of this month, remember?" asked Carmela, almost pleadingly. She knew that she neglected her youngest from time to time, and it was ridiculous to even her that it took her an entire month in advance to take Frida out for just one day.

Frida grimaced. She _did_ have plans with her mom to go out shopping. Granted, whenever her mom took her out pleasure-shopping, whether it was for clothes, jewelry, shoes, or make-up, her mother always tried to buy her things that were far too _girly_ for her tastes. But still, it was the thought that counted in the end.

But this time, Frida had forgotten about her monthly mother-daughter shopping spree in favor of remembering about her day-date with Manny, and while Frida loved her mother dearly, she loved Manny more.

Uncomfortable about the whole thing, Frida said, "Well, actually mom, I sort of made plans with Manny to spend the day with him. Could we reschedule the shopping to next week?"

"No; the soonest that I could schedule in another shopping with you hija is next month. Are you really certain that you have to hang out with Manny today? Can't you just hang out tomorrow? You can always hang out with him every day of the week, but you can only come shopping with me once a month, today!"

"But Mom! It's really important to both of us that we hang out today!" whined Frida.

If one pays close enough attention, you could see the two tunnels coming up quite fast. Remember, it doesn't take long for one person to make a life-altering decision.

Sighing, Carmela disappointedly said, "Well, if it's both that important to you, how can I say no? Here, here's a five. You can stop by Mr. Felix's fruit store and pick up an apple or pear for yourself," handing her daughter the five dollar peso, a small shiny bronze coin with a silver center (A/N: If anyone would like to correct me on what type of material a Five dollar peso is made out of, I would gladly do so).

By some human's standards, this tunnel could be seen as either the best choice ultimately possible or the absolute worst choice on the face of the earth. It depends on how you look at.

A smile quickly spread across Frida's face. "Oh, thank you mama! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she said, getting her mother into a death grip.

"You're…welcome…hija….Now, could you let me go…before I…pass out?" asked Carmela, whose face had went straight blue and was turning a light shade of purple.

"Oops! Hee he, don't know my own strength sometimes," mumbled Frida, before she zipped out the door.

Carmela watched her daughter disappear in the subsequent dust cloud. Sighing, she turned back to her frying pan. Finishing Nikita and Anita's eggs, she flipped them onto their plates and put the plates on the table, in front of her eldest daughters, who had the decency to remain quiet for once and ate their breakfast in silence.

Cleaning up the mess that the eggs had made of the counter-top, Carmela put the frying pan in the sink and started to scrub it despondently. She wanted to be a good mother, and she tried, she really did try. It's just that whenever she tried to be with Frida and be the mother that her own mother never was, Frida would always find some excuse or have something more important planned or even skip out of her mother-daughter bonding days without even telling why.

It was as if Frida didn't even want her in her life sometimes, and yet Carmela knew that her daughter was constantly trying to seek approval from both her and the rest of the family. But, whenever she did try to be a part of Frida's life, she would always push her away, whether she knew it herself or not. It was enough to make even the most optimistic and cheerful of mothers want to cry sometimes.

Well, maybe we _will_ get to go out next month," thought Carmela hopefully. "And maybe I could even schedule in another day or two to do other things as well!"

With a sense of satisfaction, a small smile crossed Carmela's depressed face and her sadness was gently lifted. If her plans ever come true, then maybe one day Carmela and Frida could have an ordinary and happy mother-daughter relationship together.

Unfortunately however, they will not. There will not be another mother-daughter days, and Carmela will not be able to arrange another day or two into the next month. For Frida Suárez, there is no such thing as "the next month." In fact, for her, there isn't even a "tomorrow."

* * *

Far away, a continent away, in one of London's best leading hospitals, an elderly and sickly woman, age 94, is dying. It is quite natural for people to die. It's the one thing the livings do best. And, at 94, some people would say that she must have had a long and fulfilling life, one full of happiness, sorrow, pain, and love. Others would say that she is lucky to have lived this long and that even if she lived a live filled with pain and misery that she should be happy to have lived at all. Still others would simply say that, damn, 94, now that's a _long _time to live.

None of these things, however, are the things being thought of in this hospital room. As far as these things go, it was a nice hospital room. It was a somewhat small room, given the occupant's age and lack of chance of survival, but still, it was a nice room. It had teal painted walls and various important looking cabinets in it. There was a small T.V. hanging from the ceiling, turned off for the dying occupants comfort. That was all it was about now, comfort. At age 94, not most people doubt just what you will be dying from, so the room's medicine reflected the woman's ultimate medicine: easing you off into the great unknown.

There were IV tubes, monitors were hooked up to the patient that monitored her unsteady heart and respiration rate, machines that checked her body temperature and blood pressure and several other useless tools that were being ultimately wasted on someone who could die from a faint puff of wind.

Her remaining living relatives, her 49-year-old daughter and 36-year-old son, Michelle and Samuel, her faceless husband whose name she never bothered to remember, and her grandchildren, Ashley (age 21) and Max (age 19), were the only ones in the room at the moment. Their doctor had left them to help save another, more likely to live patient, one who had greater prospects for the future, and now they were just waiting to hear the machines flatline.

The room was deathly silent, the only noise the soft beep of the machines and the elderly woman's slow intakes of breath. The family had been here since last early afternoon, when they received news that grandma Franklin had been found collapsed, on her kitchen floor. It turns out that she had a minor but sudden stroke and that while it wasn't technically a lethal one, the stress it put on her body and her advanced age had shortened greatly shortened her time.

Within her death-like sleep, Franklin dreamed half-dreams, of memories long since passed and forgotten. She dreamed of swing dances, of times where as a young teenager, where she had danced the night away. She dreamed of the hard times and the War and all of those fine soldiers that had died in Vietnam. She dreamed of the man on the moon and how she was proud to be an American. And she dreamed of her man, of Henry, and all those years of happiness she had with him before his years of smoking did him in. She dreamed of her childhood, of happiness and sadness, of war and scientific achievement, and of life and its end.

Far below, in the hospitals front entrance, a tall figure, clad in a ragged brown cloak, came through the sliding doors. It silently passed through the doors, which appeared to the outsider to open of their own accord, and walked into the lobby. It went up to the registry and checked through the list of occupied rooms and who occupied them.

Finding the room number it needed, the figure crossed through the hospital's right wing to the closest elevator unnoticed, and stealthy entered a open elevator, which was occupied by three other people, a nurse, a doctor, and a mute gentlemen in a wheelchair. Neither the doctor nor the nurse noticed the figure as it entered the elevator or as it went up to the 5th floor, Franklin's floor. The mute man, however, did, and as the figure politely stood with in the elevator, he gasped in fright and tried and failed to alert either health-care employee's of the figures appearance, which was happily oblivious of the man's alarm.

Eventually, the elevator came to the figure's floor, and stepping out of the elevator, it slowly but surely advanced to Franklin's infirm door. On the way there, it crossed a mirror, which surprisingly enough actually showed its reflection. It paused for a moment, to check itself in the mirror. It wasn't vain or anything, it just wanted to look good for its "client." Appearances, as much as it hated to admit, were important to the dying and deceased souls.

"_Ah, I'm genderless again_," it thought bitterly. "_Lucky me_."

Coming to Franklin's room, it raised an emaciated hand towards the door hand only to pause, if only for a moment, to look through the door's window and saw Franklin's family in the room, who had all slide into Hypnos' realm. If it disturbed them from their slumber, they might notice something amiss and halt it in its duties. The figure sighed tiredly, and with some hesitation, entered the room through the door. Without opening the door first, that is.

Hanging over Franklin, it turned its weary head towards the machines that were keeping Franklin alive. _Soon_, it thought, _those will hardly be necessary_.

Without looking back at Franklin, it began to search through the mess that was its robe in search of something, and pulled out a small, dog-eared notebook, and searched through it with the intensity of a life-long reader. It soon came to the appropriate place in the notebook and finding the name in it, found out the exact date and time for it's "client's appointment." The page read "3:45:00 PM. May 21, 2009. Old Age with complications due to stroke."

Turning its head to the clock in the room, which read 3:44:46 PM, it readied itself for the time. And, at exactly 3:45:00, Franklin Rosa Harper, died. The machines went flatline, the tense air of the room was released, and the former Franklin Harper's family woke up and began to cry over their mother/mother-in-law/grandmother's death.

With the efficiency of a professional, the figure suddenly reached out its bony hand and plucked Franklin's soul from her former body.

"Wow. That was fast. You pulled me right out of there, no doubt about that. You're a professional at this, aren't yah?" said the soul of Franklin Harper , as she looked on with the sudden shock of death. She wasn't frightened or anything. She had just died. There was no need to be shocked anymore after that life-changing event.

"Yes, I am. If you do the same job for same 45 trillion years, you eventually learn to do it off-hand," said the figure.

"You know, I had expected you to be taller. Why aren't you taller?" asked Franklin

Immediately, the figure grew 2 feet taller, not only as if it had not only just grown several feet in height, but as if it had always been that tall in the beginning.

"Well, now I am," said brown cloaked figure, as Franklin's family wept over her corpse. Her daughter was even hugging onto her dead body as if she would never let go.

"And I expected you to have red eyes. Can you change your eyes to red?" said Franklin, who never in her life had been one to settle for anything less than she wanted. Also, if she focused on this figure here, then she wouldn't have to look onto the tragic scene occurring right beside them; strong as Franklin had been during life, she didn't know if she had to strength to see her family in pain like that and not be able to help them anymore.

The figure's pale green eyes suddenly turned fire hydrant red and burned as if they were the very pits of hell themselves.

"Please stop doing that. I really hate it when people start changing my current form with their opinions. They give me a terrible headache," moaned the figure, who had started to clutch at its head in pain.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't know that," apologized Franklin. An awkward silence followed.

This silence lasted for some time, before Franklin finally said, "You know, I expected death to be a lot of things, but somehow awkward wasn't one of them. Aren't I supposed to go somewhere by now? Unless, of course, those damn atheists were right and we have nothing to look forward to is oblivion, but somehow, since you are here, I'm guessing that's not true."

The figure's head slightly wobbled, which may have been a nod as in yes or a shake for no.

"Perhaps," it said quizzically, with a small smile on its face. "And yes, you are going somewhere soon. But first, you have something to do first."

Franklin frowned. "Eh? What's that?" she asked.

The figure bent down to Franklin's eye level and gave her one of the warmest, friendliest, knowing smiles that she had ever seen. It was only second to her husband smiles, of Henry's smile. Oh, _Henry_.

"Simply take my hand," it said kindly, amiably holding out its bony, cold and clammy-looking right hand.

Withonly a second of hesitation, Franklin took Death by the hand, which surprisingly enough wasn't cold or clammy at all but had perhaps the warmest, softest grip in the world, and as light suddenly engulfed her, Franklin's vision was wavered for a moment and soon Death's smile suddenly became Henry's smile.

"Henry," Franklin said to her dead husband. "Why, Henry! You look like you haven't aged a day!"

It was true. Henry, who had died at the ripe age of 64, looked as if he was not a day over 25. He was even dressed in the tuxedo that he had worn when the two had married all those years ago.

Henry chuckled kindly. "Yeah, death has a way of doing that to a body," he said, shaking his brown-haired head.

"Oh, posh! And look at me! A old woman, with a strapping 25-year-old man! If only our parents could see us now! Ha!" said Franklin, her voice quivering ever so sadly.

"What are you talking about?" asked Henry, a grin on his face. Pulling a hand-held mirror out of his breast-pocket, he said, "Here take a look. You're gorgeous."

"Oh, don't you even start with me on _that ,_Henry Harper. We both that I'm an ugly old bag of bones, so there's no point in den...denyin...," fumbled Franklin, as she finally looked into the mirror at her reflection.

In the mirror's reflection, as if it had never changed at all, was the face of the 19-year-old woman that Franklin had thought she had lost all those years ago. Also, she was wearing the veil and dress that she had worn she married Henry.

"How did-" she started, when Henry put a finger on her lips.

"Don't even question it. Else, you'll go back to the way you were," he said pleasantly.

"Um, okay," said Franklin, before she managed to gather her senses.

"Well, if I'm going to wear the same dress for the rest of eternity, I won't want to be wearing something as unwieldy as this now, will I?" said Franklin with a huff. The wedding gown instantly disappeared and was replaced with a far less elegant but practical and still attractive, a traditional-version of a 1940s motor scooter's jacket, pants, cap and scarf (A/N: If this type of outfit has a proper name, please tell me! I really dislike not being able to give the proper name for this outfit, you know?)

Frowning slightly, Henry said, "Well, you always did have your own fashion sense."

"Damn straight," agreed Franklin firmly, as immovable and as stubborn as a rock.

"Well, shall we go then?" said Henry graciously, with a sweep of his arm into the infinite light. Franklin's mouth turned a bit, as if in hesiation, but when she said her answer, there was no trace of doubt, no inklingly of uncertianty.

"Yes. Yes, now and for always."

And so, taking Henry by the hand, Franklin went into the light.

* * *

As Death walked outside the hospital, a cheerful yet laid-back on its face, it checked its notebook again, for the next "client." Already, it could feel its shape slowly changing to suit the client's image of death and what it meant to them. It could even tell that its gender was changing from genderless to the gender more…traditional, for its personification.

Scrolling its finger down the page, it finally found the name of its next client and the reason for her death. Here's a hint: her first name starts with an "F" and her last name end with a "Z."

* * *

So, what do you think of my story so far? Like it? Hate it? Either way, I appreciate the reviews, which encourage me to write more of the story faster. And we all know how we want encouragement on this site, don't we?

I've been mulling the idea of this story for weeks now and I finally decided to do something about it. I hope that I'll do the story I've laid out in my head as must justice as the story I'm going to be typing up on my computer.

Please review!


	2. Blackbird

**Disclaimer**: I do not, in any manner, shape or form, own anything that is related to El Tigre, let alone the television show, its characters and story lines themselves, however much I wish I did. But then, if we all got what we wanted in life, then how could we consider ourselves alive at all?

I've got a headache. Oh, and sorry about the long update time. Expect this to continue happening.

* * *

Frida Suarez was having the best day of her life. Here she was, with her new boyfriend, doing the things she loved best: hogging the machines at the arcade; riding structurally unsound and potentially lethal carnival rides; watching little children try to pet cute baby animals that have, ahem, _temperament problems; _everything. She had never been happier.

"This had been the best day EVER!" Frida said for perhaps the hundredth time that day, as the two walked out of the comic book store and begun to walk store to the store with the funny One-Eyed Cat. They past the "El Mundo de Fútbol" store on the way.

"Sí, I know. I really liked the part at the carnival where that paramedic told that girl that she may never walk again," agreed Manny, laughing.

"Yeah, that sure was funn- hey, what's that?" said Frida, something catching her eye. She ran ahead half a street from Manny, breaking from his grip.

"What is it, Frida?" Manny asked, running after her, stopping two steps away from her when she seemed to suddenly fall onto one knee. "Did your hurt yourself?"

"No Manny. Check this out!" exclaimed Frida, her face aglow as she turned to show it to Manny.

It was a cute little kitten, who looked no more than two weeks old. It had a pure black coat with adorable green eyes. Its ears were both naturally clipped slightly on their ends, a possible trait from the mother or the father, and its nose was like a button. Its hind end and tail were curled up, to lessen the strain on its back as Frida led it aloft to Manny. It was the perhaps the most adorable thing Manny had ever seen, and was only rivaled by Chui, his former pet chupacabra.

"Where did you get him from?" he asked, once again proving that men will often ask unnecessary questions until their final moments.

"Duh, from the box," said Frida, pointing downwards, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Beside Frida was a whole box of kittens, which had the words "Free for a Good Home." The cats inside were noisy in a cat-like way as they tried to climb over each other to see the sun and to actually breathe, mewing and chirping pleasantly. Some, like the kitten Frida held, were pure black. Others were pure white. Most were either a mixture of the two or tabbies, with dark brown, black or tan fur. But all of them were as cute as any cat could be and as inherently mortiferous as a den of vipers, only crueler and with more highly attractive hair.

"Aren't they the cutest little things you've ever seen?" she asked sweetly, rubbing up against the side of her face the angelic kitten, completely oblivious to the true natures of cats. The cutest little thing in her arms began to purr contently.

"Oh. Well, they certainly are. Are you sure they're safe? They don't have rabies, do they," said Manny, caring for the first time about something as silly as rabies. Now that Frida was his girlfriend, he felt even more protective over her than ever before and didn't want to see her get hurt from something like a diseased cat. The kitten might be cute, but it was still just an animal.

"You know Manny, you're starting to sound like your father," pointed out Frida none too prudently.

"Am not!" claimed Manuel. The cats were giving off the familiar traces that most cats give off, and as part cat himself, he felt both at the same time a deep instinct to care for the younger generation and to strangle these future competitors for food and mates. And now this, this _kitten_, was getting the total attention of _his_ mate! Jealousy wasn't something familiar to Manny, but he was picking it up rather quickly.

Still, being jealous of a simple cat was still embarrassing, so still being protective of Frida; he tried to get her away from it.

"Come on Frida, we have to get to funny One-Eyed Cat before five. That's when you said that you'd have to be home in time to greet your father, right? We don't want to make him mad at me; he may probe each of us and find out we're dating," said Manny worriedly.

"Oh Manny! Can we keep it, can we?" asked Frida on her knees. "It says that 'Free for a good home!' We've got good homes! You could keep him; my dogs would eat this cat alive!"

"Sorry Frida, but I don't think that would be a good idea," said Manny. "We still don't know if that cat's healthy or not. And we have to travel light. Anyway, our parents probably wouldn't let us keep it anyway," acting as if that ever made a difference at all in the past.

"Please Manny? Please? Please please pleasepleasepleaseplease?" begged Frida until her words became one incomprehensible mess of verbiage. By this time she was crawling up Manny's shirt, the kitten under arm, which was merping pathetically in discomfort, unheard by both.

"Sorry Frida, but the answer is still no," said Manny resolutely, arms crossed. He had made his final, if biased, decision.

Frida got off her knees and stared stubbornly at Manuel.

"We're keeping this cat over my cold dead body and I don't care if you want to or not," whispered Frida defiantly, giving a rather fair description of her body's condition within the next few hours.

Manny glared back. "No, we're not."

"Yes, we are."

"No, we aren't."

"Yes, we are."

The two stared deeply into each others eyes, neither backing down, giving an inch. Manny wouldn't give this mangy lump of fur the chance to steal time with his mate away from him, just as Frida wouldn't leave this child of heavens merciful light out on the street. Neither would budge, neither would relent. It was something comparable to an unstoppable object trying to move an immovable object. It was a contest of will, a test of stubborn willpower, never stopping, never breaking.

Naturally, they both "agreed" that they couldn't leave the kitten out in the cold and took it with them.

While the two journeyed to their precious One-Eyed Cat store, a dark figure looked down on them from the rooftops above.

"Wow that plan to cover my smell and distract El Tigre with those cats actually worked. Huh, well, go figure," it shrugged. Getting back to the matter at hand, it glared down at the two, more at Frida than at Manny.

"Frida, that little whore! "Stealing El Tigre away from me like that" raged the dark figure, its anger and rage at Frida making its skin-tight costume all the tighter and sexier before curbing its anger.

Unknown to the dark figure, the pant's of time flies open to decide it and the world's fate, allowing it the chance to make change its decision and prevent so much pain from happening. However, as is human nature, the figure ignores any rational thought inside its head, and plunges on with the plan, its anger at Frida blinding it to the truth.

Finally, the pant's of time recloses itself. This one has made its decision. Perhaps the other one will fair better…

"No matter," it fumed, "for soon, I shall finally have El Tigre to make mine and mine alone. All these two need to do is get into their positions, and that whore will cease to hinder my plans!"

Back down below, Manny and Frida were inching ever closer to their unknown "positions."

"Say Manny, want to hear a joke?" asked Frida, the kitten cuddled up in a ball in her arms.

"Sure, let's hear it," said Manuel nonchalantly. He completely failed to notice the black-suited figure above him and Frida. Oh, if only he had noticed it…

"Okay, here it goes: a man dies and arrives at heaven's gates. St. Peter says, 'Micheal Jacques, correct?" The man said, 'yes, that's my name.' 'Very good,' answers Peter. 'So, do I go into heaven or what?' asks Micheal. Peter says, 'Well, you really didn't do anything too good during your life. You really didn't go to church or do any good works of charity. But at the same time, you didn't do anything too bad.' Micheal asks, 'So, am I going to hell? Purgatory?' 'Purgatory?' asks Peter. 'No, it doesn't really exist. We just said that to keep Heaven and Hell's Unions happy. No, it's not Purgatory for you.' 'Oh,' said Jacques sadly. 'Hey hey,' says Peter, 'No need to get depressed. How about this; you give me a few good examples of any good deed you did in life, and tell you what, I'll let you slip into the gates, all right?' 'Good deeds?' says Jacques. 'Well, there was that one time I was helping a cute old couple fix their car. Their jack was rusty and they couldn't get it up themselves, so I decided, hey, why not. I lifted it up and tried to fix their tire's problem. I even had to get right underneath the wheel itself.' 'Really,' said Peter. 'When was this? It's not in the Charter of Good Deeds.' 'Oh, about five seconds ago,' replied the man nonchalantly."

"Ha ha ha ha ha!" laughed Frida, alone. Manny didn't join in her merriment. He was busy staring off across the street, at some unseen object.

"Uh, hey dude," said Frida, waving her hand in front of Manny's face. He didn't even blink.

"Hello? Earth to Manny! This is your girlfriend speaking. Wake up! What is it?" she asked snapping her fingers in Manny's face, before she followed Manny's line of vision and finally saw what had caught his attention so much. It was a store, which had jetpacks on sale in the front window. "Of course," thought Frida.

"Jetpacks," said Manny dreamily before he disappeared in a dust cloud, only to reappear right in front of the story, his face practically pressed against the glass. "Jetpacks."

Frida held in a groan, and gave a weary sigh and a weak smile. "Oh well, I guess we could take a detour." It's not as if they could ever hope to afford any jetpack, sale or no sale, without at least robbing five banks. And Manny had finally decided to become a hero not a week ago, so he couldn't do that any more. Seriously. He's a hero now. For real this time.

However, as Frida stepped off the curb, there was the sudden rush of wind and the sound of small, portable jetpack engines running at full speed. A familiar purple laser beam was fired close Frida's feet, sending her back a few feet into the street. The kitten she had been holding broke from her grasp in fright and scampered off into a nearby alleyway.

"Oof!" went Frida cutely, landing on her virgin bottom. Manny turned around from the sound and was by Frida's side in a second. He pulled her off the ground and looked up into the skies to find the dastardly villain that would dare hurt his Frida.

"What was that?" asked Frida in her confusion. Her legs were slightly burnt and bruised from the shock of the impact and had given out; making it that she could hardly stand limp, much less stand upright properly and run.

"A laser. Someone's attacking us," said Manny gravely, the merciless sun glaring in his eyes. Suddenly, the attacker appeared and hovered some 30 feet from the two, his/her identity temporarily obscured by the sun's rays.

"Helping her off her ass again, El Tigre? Typical! But soon El Tigre, you won't be able to help this whore with anything!" said the dark figure before it charged the two at break-neck speeds

Manny, thinking quickly, pushed Frida away from him and turned into El Tigre right before the dark figure gave him a full body-slam and sent him flying through a fruit market's front window. What El Tigre failed to notice was that there was a small red X-mark right where Frida landed.

"Who are you and why are you attacking us?!" demanded El Tigre pulling himself out of the broken glass and the store as the figure hovered just a few feet away from him, his sight somewhat blurred by the sun's rays.

"What don't recognize me El Tigre?" said the figure mockingly, as it lifted its wrist and fired a laser. "Well, maybe this will jog your memory!"

El Tigre was sent flying back again and hit the back of the store with a powerful thump. He quickly recovered and opening his claws, launched his claw chain and pinned the figure against the wall opposite. Approaching the figure, he slowly recognized it.

"Cuervo?" said Tigre slowly, as Black Cuervo struggled to get free from his claws. "Why are you attacking us? What do you have to gain?"

Cuervo stopped struggling for a moment. "Everything, El Tigre. Everything," she said quietly, sadly, before she landed a solid kick to El Tigre's jaw, freeing herself from his clutches.

"But why?" he asked, as he launched himself at her, razor sharp claws extended. Cuervo bent backwards agilely and grabbed El Tigre's extended arm. Pulling herself up, she sent him into a spiral before releasing him, sending El Tigre yet again flying into the street. Her legs still injured, Frida could do nothing but watch as Black Cuervo came flying out of the store and ferociously punched El Tigre in the gut. But, he soon recovered and breaking his fall with a spin, started to back track as Cuervo began to fire continuously at him.

"To get rid of the one obstacle, the one thing that keeps you and me apart, Tigre!" cried Black Cuervo, and giving her jetpack more juice, she went into a low arch before giving El Tigre a strong left hook. He was sent flying all the way to the bottom of the street and hitting a building, stuck there like a fly on a flyswatter.

With a cry of jealous rage, Cuervo turned and fired several times at the support beams of the Mundo de Fútbols' giant bronze-colored fútbol. The orb fell from the store's roof and against all natural laws of gravity and science, began to bounce up and down the street like the inflated leather ball it was shaped after. Eventually, it began to bounce closer and closer to Frida...

"No!" cried El Tigre, pulling and pushing himself off the building's wall, propelled his body to make it there on time. Frida, her eyes as wide as a simile, gave a loud cry of panic and fear. Black Cuervo stood on the air, her jetpack keeping her buoyant on the air, waiting for the metal ball to hit its mark.

Time seemed to slow; everyone's movements went to a stand still. No one knows why time seems to do this; it's not as if it is an ordinary convention of time to slow down every time someone is about to die a horrible death. Perhaps it just does it for dramatic effect. Who knows?

The ball came down, down, down; down with the force of an 8-wheeler truck, onto of Frida Suarez, her body giving a sickening, bone-splintering crunch. The crash and the unpleasant sound are heard for several street blocks. The metal ball moves no more; it has done its duty and needs not do any more.

"FRIDA! NO!" cries El Tigre, as he collides head first on the metal fútbol, failing to budge it one inch. He rushes to the other side, to coldly greeted with the grim sight of the woman of his life, from the tip of her toes to the end of her waist, crushed like so many tortilla before her.

"No, no, no," El Tigre whispers, as he falls to knees in despair next to Frida's stricken down body. He powered down from El Tigre and becomes Manny. Tears begin to flow down his face as they never have before.

"Oh, Frida. Frida, Frida, Frida," he starts. "I-if only I had been a little quicker, a little faster, I could have-"

Suddenly, Frida starts to cough, a long raked cough, full of pain and suffering. A fair amount of blood joins the cough, making it all the more painful for Manny to see.

"Frida! You're alive!" said he excitedly, even though it was obvious that this fact would be no more in a few more moments.

"Y-yes," said Frida weakly. Even though her legs, hip bone and some of her ribs were broken, the funny thing was, she didn't feel too much pain. Instead, she felt a terrible numbness that was even worse. She heard from her father about how people begin to lose feeling in their body if their nervous system has been completely split. Great; my back's broken too.

"D-don't worry Frida," said Manny pathetically, pulling out his cell phone. "We-we'll call the hospital or something! We'll get you taken cared of! You'll be all right!

Trust me!!! What number do you put down for 9-1-1?" He was hysterical at this point.

"Manny, don't," said Frida, feebly pushing the cell from Manny's trembling hands. "Listen; I have something to tell you."

"What? What do you have to tell me?" implored Manny, taking Frida's had into his.

"Take, take, take care of the cat for me, okay?" said Frida. She never knew how painful numbness could be. "And…and…"

"And? And what!?" beseeched Manny.

"And re-re-remember," said Frida, taking in one last tortured breath. "That I…that I…"

"That you what? THAT YOU WHAT!?" cried Manny to the heavens in sorrow.

"That I lov-"was as far as she got, when finally, the wavering light behind her baby blue eyes faded. Her hand went limp in Manny's grasp. It fell from his hand, in his own world now of eternal misery and woe. It landed softly on the ground, lightly splashing in the expanding puddle of blood that was pouring from Frida's broken body.

Manny wept for sometime, his world having fallen into the deepest black pit of gloom that he had ever known. His woman, no, his love, was dead. Dead. Dead, as dead as the ground beneath his feet. However, soon he was broken from his reverie of sadness when he heard the sound of a shrill, high-pitched laugh, coming up from above. He looked up and saw Black Cuervo, laughing with sinister delight at the deed that she had done.

"CUERVO!!!" shouted Manny with all the fury in his soul. His skin felt on fire, and in his veins pumped righteous hatred for Black Cuervo. He was sure that the sweat from his skin was evaporating as quickly as it poured from his skin in bucketfuls. He had never known such fury, such power before his life. It was intoxicating. If it didn't come from his deepest pit of agony, he'd live to possess this power all his life, even if he had to burn the whole world to keep it.

Through his pure rage, Manny immediately became El Tigre. But, instead of his ordinary green eyes, El Tigre's eyes were a blood-lust red. All he, all it, saw, was Black Cuervo, this puny blackbird that had stolen his light from him. Without its light, the Tiger only saw blood-drenched darkness. It fired itself from the ground, fueled by sheer madness-filled blind wrath and raw instinct, at this weak bird before it.

For a second, for perhaps the first time in her life but certainly not her last, Black Cuervo felt true, undeniable, heart-stopping terror. But, she quickly recovered, and taking out her secret weapon, waited for the moment to strike.

The Tiger was almost upon her when, like a cobra striking, Black Cuervo pulled out a supercharged taser and sent several 1000 kilovolts of energy through the beast's body. It immediately went limp and would have fallen to the ground and gained more injuries if Black Cuervo didn't catch it the last second.

Black Cuervo examined the unconscious Manny with a critical eye, to see that her prize was not too damaged for her plans ahead. Satisfied with the results, she looked lovingly at Manny.

"Perdóneme, mi amor. But, if this is the only way that we can be together, than so be it," Black Cuervo said, perhaps just a bit sadly, before she flew off with her prize, off into the horizon until the blaring sun swallowed them both. Where she went, who can say? But, her actions are as clear as day.

The former Frida Suarez lies in a sea of her own blood, her lower body crushed underneath a metal store ornament, dead. Her life is gone; all that remains now for the physical world to see is her broken corpse, for all to see. But no one sees it; the street, which had been "rented out" to Black Cuervo for the afternoon, was as empty as a human's skull.

There is simply the pale white figure standing at the curb, the sole witness to the entire preceding events. Cuervo didn't know he was there; generally, no one still alive does.

He walks up to the giant mock fútbol with considerable focus. He turns and looks up to the sky, the retreating figures and the smoke cloud they are leaving behind. What he is thinking is impossible to tell; his face is as unreadable as a New York City subway map.

Finally, he looks down at Frida's crushed body. He steps in river of blood still streaming from the body. The river doesn't even shimmer from his steps; he leaves no footprints. He stands beside the body, and waits. For what or who, no one can be certain. But, he waits with the patience that a rock, waiting for the day that it can once again become fluid again, and gurgle along fluidly with the other molten rocks. He waits; he can wait and will continue waiting, until time itself ends and the universe, even the pant's of time, rips apart. He waits; he waits for eternity. Only this, and nothing more.

* * *

I'm not very good with fight scenes yet, so please forgive me if the one in here seems to drag on for a while. I also sincerely hope that I didn't make any scenes too long or momentous for any of you. If so, just tell me; I'll see what I can do.

I hope I've done the first chapter justice. Please review and have a wonderful Thanksgiving, 'kay?


	3. Don't Fear the Reaper

**Disclaimer**: I do not own anything that is at all related towards El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, however much I wish otherwise.

* * *

Her world was full of bright, fiery white-hot pain. Frida's body was a searing underworld of eternal agony and torment. Frida had some experience with pain, having a high threshold for it; it was a necessity when you're El Tigre's girlfriend. But she had never felt anything like this before; her body was ripping itself apart in the sheerness of the pain, and there was nothing she could do about it. If she could have, Frida would have screamed, but she didn't; any attempt to died before it reached her lips, choked out into nothingness by the intense fire that roared through her very soul.

Slowly however, as if it had never been there at all, the pain gradually dissipated, the bright light disappeared and the world returned to Frida. She wondered briefly why this was so, before noticing a presence nearby; someone close, someone who it felt cold, and lonely, full of anguish and woe. She tried to say something, to comfort who ever this was, but all that came was a mouthful of blood.

Perhaps thankfully, Frida heard the words, "Frida! You're alive!" The presence was Manny. Damn, it was Manny. Damn damn damn and other such obscenities. After all, here she was, dying a slow, painful death and what could be worse than the one person that she loved more than life itself being here to watch every excoriating moment of it.

"Y-yes," she said painfully, slightly choking in her own blood. Her mind turned back to the pain, or rather, the lack of it. In fact, where was once pain was now a numbness, a complete lack of feeling, which easily overrode the formerly present pain. In a way, it was somehow worse and lacked the comfort of pain; pain, as horrible as it may be, at least reminds you that you are alive. This numbness… it denied Frida even that comfort. She sarcastically praised her good fortune.

"Frida! You're alive!" said Manny's voice hopefully.

"Yeah, for another, what, 10 seconds?" thought Frida bitterly.

"D-don't worry Fr- We'll call the hospital- Trust- 9-1-1?"said Manny's faltering, death-hindered voice, filled with the tears that were surely flooding his face. By now, the world had started to fade, but unlike the first time, this time it was fading into merciful darkness of death, not the tormenting light of life. She wasn't long for this world, that was certain.

"Manny. Don't," she said, tears of her own in her eyes. It was painful to see him like this, so filled with sadness and grief. How she wished she could wipe those tears away, wash away all of Manny's pain, to see his happy, smiling face once more, to hear his laughter and to perhaps share his joy. She would give anything to do that, to have that, to help Manny in any way possible, but now she was deprived of even that as the darkness swarmed her entire being.

Well, if she couldn't do that, then at the very least, she should be able to minimize the damage.

Struggling, Frida reached up as far as she could and pushed the cell phone from Manny's hands. She summoned her remaining strength and said, "Listen; I have something to tell you." Woo, look at all those pretty colors! She had never known that there were so many of them that she had never seen before!

"What?" said Manny. "What do you have to tell me?" It hurt to talk, it hurt to speak, it hurt to breath but Frida continued. "Take, take, take good care of the cat for me, okay? And…and…" she struggled.

"And? And what!?" cried Manny, for once feeling so useless, so helpless. It hurt Frida to see him like this, especially since it was over her. The words came even harder now, but she had to try. "And re-re-remember that I…that I…" the world of light was now completely gone to Frida. Just the darkness remained. She was almost completely deaf; she couldn't even tell what, if anything, Manny was saying. She never knew it was so hard to speak when you can't even hear the words coming out of your own mouth. Darkness loomed, surged and was all present.

"That….I…lov-" Frida stopped and made a small groan, perhaps in pain, perhaps in fear, who knows? But either way, with a final exhale and more regrets than anyone should carry, the world as she knew it faded into an infinitely black oblivion and Frida Moreno Suarez died.

* * *

Now the world was black, a darkness of impenetrable stillness and silence. Frida didn't know why and couldn't even remember how she had gotten here, but it seemed to her that she had fallen into a sea of darkness, an eternal black abyss. Frida didn't know which was worse, the fact that she didn't know how she came to be here or how she was going to get out. She couldn't even tell if her eyes were open or not; when she tried both, she saw nothing but the same infinite void. This frightened her and sent shivers down her entire being.

"I have to find a way out of here. Wherever _here_ is, that is," thought Frida, as she struggled to move her limbs, to find some possible way out of this darkness. However, if they did move, Frida couldn't tell; all feeling throughout her entire body appeared to have disappeared, which frightened Frida even more.

She started to flail her arms and legs around, in hopes of feeling something, but before she could get any further, she noticed a sudden bright light right ahead of her, a light that hadn't been there a second before.

"What? Is that…light!? Yes, its light! I can see something! Wheeee!!!" squealed Frida to herself, her heart light with glee. Light had to mean that it had to be coming from something, that there was something else besides this creepy darkness. Light meant hope.

It shone like a search beam and illuminated Frida's face, making her eyes wince. In fact, it was so dazzling that Frida could even see herself; she could see her arms and legs, and started to touch parts of her body. She pinched her arm and was meet with a sharp but familiar and thus welcome feeling of pain. She could feel again too. Frida's heart leapt in her chest almost as much than when the light shone.

Her hopes reinvigorated, Frida tried to move herself towards the light, hopefully the exit to this dark hellhole but before she could take another step, the light's brightness intensified and started to blind Frida. Frida tried to block out some of the light with her arms, tried to shield her eyes from the unforgiving brilliance but it didn't help any; the light came up to Frida and swept her away with its luminance, engulfed by it as much as she was by the darkness before it. If she felt herself shift from this, Frida couldn't tell; the light made everything all too confusing, too be fumbling.

But soon, Frida started to notice a subtle change to the light; it became to fade, fade away just as the darkness had faded from the light. And all too quickly, Frida could make out other things as well. The light was giving way and with it Frida could tell that she was back into reality, her reality, the one she had always known. She could see the ground below her, the sky above her and the buildings, sidewalk and other details.

She was still on the ground, lying on her chest, just as she was when that darkness suddenly appeared. Frida struggled to remember why she had been in it in the first place, but couldn't. Then she tried to remember what had happened right before that, in case if something had happened that could explain the darkness. She came up with nothing. She just couldn't remember.

Frida sighed but tried not to worry about it; if it was really important, then she would remember it, in time. That or someone would remind her just what it was that she was forgetting. These things usually sorted themselves out anyway.

Frida turned her head left and looked around the street, in search of anyone that she knew, maybe even Manny, who was usually so helpful with stuff like this, but she saw no one. She started to turn it right, when something unexpectedly caught her attention: another strong source of light. Frida closed her eyes again in pain and started to think that it was the light from before, her to take her away again, maybe to that dark place or maybe someplace even worse, if there was such a place. But then Frida realized something: it was merely the sun shining in her eyes.

The sun, which was setting, was giving off its last burst of radiance. The bright orb, which hung there in the sky like a ripe orange, shone off a brilliance of reds, yellows, oranges, pinks, and purples that Frida had never seen before. There was even a hint of green in the sky. It was enrapturing.

"Has the sun always that beautiful?" she asked herself aloud.

"No, not really. The array of colors you're seeing are actually caused by the pollution in the city; on an ordinary day in nature, where industry hasn't reared its ugly head and poured choking toxic fumes into the air, the sun doesn't give off as many colors. But where the sun fails to give off as many colors in nature as it does in the polluted cities, the sheer majesty of the moment in nature makes up for it," said a calm, tenor voice suddenly.

Frida swerved her head right and upwards and saw the faint outline of a person. Their features were a bit blotchy from the effect of the sun's brilliant light but Frida could tell that whoever this person was that he or she was standing just a few feet from her and looked no more older than 18, just a few years older than she was. How she had not noticed them before?

"Oh, um, hello?" said Frida nervously. "Um, if it's not too much trouble, who are you?"

The pale white figure smiled kindly but ignored the question, for now.

"Here, let me give you a hand," he said in friendly tones, holding his hand down to the girl, leaning over Frida slightly.

"Um, sure, why not?" she said, moving to get up. She moved her hands back over in front of her and began to push herself up. She failed to notice that even as her arms and hands pushed her up; that they actually went _through_ the street's pavement before they actually stopped halfway to the elbow and pushed her upward. Getting up to her knees, Frida outstretched her hand and grabbed onto the stranger's pale one. Taking it, she next failed to notice that the hand that gripped the stranger's hand was not the tan one she was always used to but was a faint blue, translucent one. With a short, uncertain wobble and a final push, Frida got to her feet (while failing to notice that part of her right foot briefly vanished into the street as she did so).

"Thanks. For a second there, I wasn't sure that I'd be able to get up," said Frida with a half-hearted chuckle, brushing off her knees with her head turned downwards.

"Hey, what are friends for, right?" the stranger said with a simple shrug, which went by unnoticed by Frida, who finally picked up her head and faced the stranger head-on for the first time.

The stranger was clearly a male in his late teens or early twenties, who had a boyish look about him. He stood several inches taller than Frida and had the palest shade of skin that she had ever seen; it reminded Frida of the face of the moon, or perhaps the whiteness of human bone. His sleek hair, dark as ebony and just as shiny, fell down over part of his face; the rest ran straight across the back of his head and stopped short of his neck. He wore simple clothes, tight black pants and a black shirt, with a white cartoonish skull on its front with Japanese kanji running down alongside it. He had a countance that was like that of an angel, beautiful and perfect, as if it had been carved out of the highest quality of marble. To say that he put off an air of friendly ambiability would be putting it lightly; he exuded affability. His face looked like it was never far away from a smile of the most intense heart-felt warmness.

"Erm," said Frida. She hadn't expected the stranger to look so good and was tempo "You know, you still haven't answered my question from before: what's your name?"

The pale young man said, with hardly a change in expression, "I've been given many names, most of them involuntarily and without my permission. But, for the moment, you may want to call me by my profession."

Frida smiled in bewilderment.

"What?" she said, confused by what that meant.

The teen frowned ever so slightly. It looked as though someone had taken a work of art and gravely tarnished it.

"Have you…noticed anything different about yourself yet, Frida?" asked the teen, as gently as possible.

"No, I haven't. Why should I?" asked Frida, becoming more and more confused by the passing seconds, before something struck her. "How did you know my name was Frida?"

The man chuckled, just a little bit uncomfortably. Frida heard, or thought she heard him whisper to himself, "I always hate it when they don't remember," confusing her. Remember what, she wondered. He gently grabbed Frida by the willing shoulder and directed her a few steps away, then turned her around. He pointed to the giant fútbol, which Frida finally noticed had been right behind her the entire time. How had she missed that?

"Do you remember, at all, why this fútbol is here?" he asked in a serious tone. Really close to him, Frida could swear that he smelled faintly of poppies.

"No, not really," Frida said, puzzled.

The teenager visibly sighed and then said, mournfully. "Then, you may want to look a little more down."

Frida did and was met with a horrible sight.

Right there, just a few feet from them, was her, Frida Suarez, in all of her pain and glory, half of her body underneath the large bronze orb, crushed beyond all recognition. The body was obviously dead and the large pool of blood only made it worse. It was perhaps the most gruesome sight Frida had ever seen and it was only made worse that she knew that it was herself there, dead, slowly cooling and waiting for someone else to discover. But strangely, the face was oddly serene; this was unfortunately lost to Frida, as she looked at her dead body.

With a choked throat and her eyes filled with spectral tears, Frida asked to the pale teen, "So. I'm dead then?"

"Yes. You really can't get any deader than you are now. Sorry," the teen said sympathetically.

"Then…then… that means that you're…?" Frida left the last word unspoken. There was no need to.

"Death. Yes. Them's the breaks, unfortunately," said Death with a sad little smile.

Frida stood there, her arms limp at her sides, still staring at her dead self. She felt numb inside.

"I'm…dead. I'm dead? I'm dead," kept running through her mind, as her gaze kept to the body. Finally, Frida fell down to ghostly knees, which caused her to sink down slightly into the ground before her body was righted again and came back up to surface level.

"Yes, you are," said Death bluntly, before pulling himself together and saying in cheerful tones, "Don't worry, it happens to everyone eventually! Relax; take a few deep breathes and try to calm yourself. You'll get used to the idea of being dead. After all, the worst has finally happened; how much can it get for you, right?"

"…" was Frida's response, as she continued to stare at her body. And then it all suddenly came back, like a dam had finally broken, bearing all of the memories with it: the walk, the box of kittens, the fight between Manny and Black Cuervo, the bouncing fútbol of death, her last moments, everything. It all came roaring back to her and flooded Frida with a surge of feelings and emotions, many of them disorderly and chaotic but they all ended in one thing: shock and a terrible, terrible feeling of sadness.

Death frowned and bending over waved his hand in front of Frida's face. "Yoooo-whooo! Frida! You in there?" He snapped his fingers a few times for good measure. She failed to even blink.

His frown increasing in length, Death pushed up his short sleeves and began to pull Frida off from the ground.

"Come on Frida! Snap out of it!" Death said, shaking Frida. "Wake up!!" he shouted, before starting to slap Frida back and forth. Finally, Frida broke out of whatever world she was in and snapped to.

"What? What's going on?" she said worriedly.

"You were going to shock. You were getting all worked over about being, you know, dead and stuff," said Death, taking a step or two back.

"Dead? I'm dead?" started Frida again. Death groaned and gave Frida another shake.

"Don't go into that again! I hate to see anyone going into shock or being sad… Please?" he begged.

Frida didn't start to go into shock again; in fact, she started to get mad.

"Well, why shouldn't I be sad? I'm dead, remember? I. Just. Died! And you want me to just accept it like that!?" she shouted, snapping her fingers for good emphasis. Death smiled again, a little uncomfortably.

"Well, no, not necessarily. But I would appreciate it if you didn't start taking it out on me, though," he said ruefully.

"Well, why shouldn't I? I'm the victim here! I'm dead! What are you going to do about it!?"

"Nothing. I'm not the one that killed you. That was Zoe Aves, or Black Cuervo. Whatever. The point is, I simply don't want it to ruin your day, okay?"

"Ruin my day!? It's my entire life that has been ruined! Now what am I going to do!? Now I won't be able to do all of the cool stuff I had planned for myself! I won't be able to grow up and become a news reporting/manicurist/superhero/presidente of the whole stinking world! I won't be able to grow up and have kids! I died before I could legally drink! I even died a virgin! A freaking' virgin!!! Can you understand my pain!!?" shouted Frida, waving her hands in front of Death. She noticed that, sometimes, her hands would actually go through Death's body instead of hitting as, as it also did. She also noticed that her arms weren't tan but a light, translucent blue

Death turned his head back to Frida's dead body, then pulled out a small little notebook and read it briefly.

"Well, it says here in the Book of Ages that when you died, that the entire of your lower half was utterly crushed under the fútbol, that every one of your foot and leg bones broke at least once, the most 6 times, that your hip is broken or fractured in 3 places and that some of your organs were torn apart by the impact or punctured by a broken rib bone. And one of those organs included your genitalia."

Putting away the book, Death said, "If I had to guess, the impact that crushed and killed you probably crushed and broke your hymen in the process. So, if you want to think about it, you died while you having sex with the fútbol."

Frida glared at him and whispered, in a tone that could kill, "That's not what I meant and you know it."

"Yes, I do. But you're the one that's getting mad over the whole thing. You're dead, Frida; accept it. There's nothing that you can do to change it, no way to return to the way things were before today. All there's now is acceptance. That's it. And please don't redirect your anger at the "unfairness" of the situation on me; you lived a full life and that's all you are going to get. Just because it was shorter than others doesn't mean that you lived any more or any less than any one else. You got to live a life time, something few beings get to experience in this existence. Be thankful that you were given that," said Death, ever so sadly.

Frida raised a finger, about to make another protest, when she actually thought about what Death had said.

It was true; she was lucky to have gotten what she had been given. Sure, she wanted to experience more of it, but then, that didn't seem to be an option any more. And unless she could do a whole Frankenstein deal, which was unlikely, she doubted that she could change it. And here she had gotten mad at Death, who had never done anything to her.

Understanding this, Frida said, "I-I'm sorry Death. I-I don't know what came over me. It just seems so unfair; I thought that I would have gotten more out of life than just this. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you like that.

Death gave a friendly smile and said, "Oh, I understand. It's that way with most people anyway: always expecting for life to go on forever, until one day they learn that as much as they wanted to believe it, that they aren't as immortal as they thought they were. It's only natural; I'm used to it anyways."

"Still, I'm sorry."

"Yes, well…" said Death, before he felt a sudden something that hadn't been there before, pushing him forward a bit.

"Well then, if that's all settled," he said, putting his hand on Frida's back, "I've got other people today to do, so if you'll just come with me…"

"Oh! Right, sorry. Um, Death, can I ask a question?" as she was lead by Death into the light.

"Yes, what is it?" said Death, conversationally.

"I was wondering: if I'm dead, how as I able to feel the sun in my eyes? I don't have any nerve endings anymore, right? So why did I feel pain? And, if I don't have a body anymore, why haven't I, you know, gone down into the ground then? After all, if all that I am is a soul right now, why would I still be able to touch things?

"It's your corporal memory." said Death. But seeing the confused look on Frida's face, Death explained:

"You see, you've spent an entire life inside a body that couldn't handle looking into the sun and so have become accustomed to not looking at it too closely. You think that you feel pain from looking at it when you really don't; it's the memory of it. Don't worry, it'll go away soon. It always does."

"And the same thing goes with your environment. You've already seen that you're transparent and that you can go through objects. That you're weightless now. But, you've also noticed that you haven't gone through the ground any more than a few feet. That's also corporal memory; just as with pain, you expect things like gravity to still work as they always did when you're alive. It's just that, since you're the recently dead, that you still a bit uncertain of the shape of things on the spectral plane. You're still adjusting. Don't worry, it'll pass too; as long as you don't think too much about it, you won't start falling into the earth. And even if you do, you can always just imagine yourself back on solid earth and then poof! There will you be, right back solid ground. Of course, you can walk through junk and will be invisible to stuff, but besides that, you'll be pretty much set. But you really don't need to worry about it too much; after all, when you get to the other side, all of this won't apply to you anyways," explained Death.

"Oh. Okay. That makes sense then. Um. One last question," said Frida, a bit nervously.

"Hm?" said Death.

"Where's Manny? Why wasn't he by my corpse back there?"

Death suddenly stopped walking alongside her in the light and, for the first time it seemed to Frida, really looked surprised. Troubled even. He had looked anxious when she had started to go into shock, but that wasn't anything compared to how he was acting now.

However, to his credit, Death recovered quickly and lied, "Um, he went to go get help. When you died, he was heart broken, tears and snot everywhere. He tried to get your body out from underneath the fútbol but couldn't since it was too heavy, so he decided to go get help, to get it off of you so he could take care of your body. That is, after beating up Black Cuervo, I mean."

But now Frida could tell something was wrong. What it was, she couldn't tell, but something about Death's story didn't add up and she decided to say so.

"Death, are you lying to me?" she asked bravely, questioning one of the greatest forces in all of existence's honesty.

Death looked offended. "Me? Lie? To you? What makes you say that, Frida? I always tell the truth?"

"Stop it Death," said Frida, giving the personification a slight glare. "Your story doesn't sound right. Why did you add the part about Manny beating up Cuervo at the end, like as an after-thought? And why did you look so nervous before you answered my question, hm? And don't even bullshit me about your honesty; I bet you lie as much as any other human."

"Er…" started Death, before he fell into an uncomfortable silence. Now he _really_ looked uncomfortable; he always hated being the deliverer of bad news. It's one thing to tell someone that, yes, they were in fact dead, because there was a kind of finality in that. In someone's death, at the very least, there was the odd comfort with it that tells the deceased that while their life may not have been the fairest or the most peaceful of lives, that now that it is over, that their agony and strife is over and that they were finally free from the pains of life. But to deliver the bad news of the living, especially to the deceased, not only meant that it effected the living and could cause even more pain to the receiver and that the deceased would be troubled by this and would want to help whoever the bad news applied to but that, since they were deceased and could no longer actively interact with the living, that they could only stand back and watch the living suffer even more.

Death sighed. "Do you really want to truth? Because, if I tell you, there's no going back. You won't be able to forget this, even if you wanted to. And it will only cause you more pain than you have now."

Frida was taken back by this, but never one to back down, she said, "Yes. Tell me the truth."

"Very well then," said Death, his hand combing his hair. "You see, after you died, Manny was in absolute misery. That part is true; the rest, unfortunately, is also true. But after crying over your corpse a little, Black Cuervo mocked Manny about your death, which sent him into a blood frenzy. He would have probably torn her limb from limb, but at the last second, Cuervo zapped with a taser. Last thing I saw of them was Cuervo carrying El Tigre's limb body into the horizon."

"What!?" said Frida panicky. "Where did they go!?"

"Like I said, I didn't see where exactly where they were heading, but if I had to fancy a guess, I'd have to say that Zoe brought Manny back to her home, the Flock of Fury's hideout."

"What!? Black Cuervo is Zoe Aves?!!" exclaimed Frida, who had failed to notice Death's previous attempts to reveal Zoe's secret identity.

"But, wait," she said, when Death's last statement caught up with her. "What would Zoe want with Manny? I can understand why she'd want to ace me, what with our feud and all, but why get Manny involved?"

"It's always been about Manny," said Death wearily.

"Wait, what? It has?" said Frida.

"The feud. The whole thing: the fighting, the years of loathing and contempt for each other, everything; at the heart of it all, it was all caused by Manny."

"Wait! Why would Manny be the source of the fight? Zoe and I have been fighting all these years because she won't stop pulling awful pranks on me; Manny has nothing to do with it."

Death shook his head. "No, no; he's always been the cause of it. Tell me Frida: have you _always_ been friends with Manny?

Frida, puzzled, said, "Well, no. Not really. I mean, we met in kindergarten, in time out. We saw each other and, being kids, were naturally friendly to each other. We would, heh heh, we would actually get in trouble, just so we could hang out together in time out and then, when we got to elementary school and beyond, detention. We've been best buds ever since then."

"Yes, yes, I thought that would have been the case," said Death, nodding sagely.

"What's the case? What are you talking about Death?"

"Frida, do you know who Manny's best friend was _before_ you stole the title?"

"Um, n-ooo?" said Frida innocently enough.

"It was Zoe. Zoe Aves. On that day, when you two became best friends, at the instance you two met, you were destined to be forever bound with each other. And, as a direct result of that, Manny choose you as his new best friend. Oh, yes, as a child, he probably didn't think much of it, but then, most children don't think; they rely on instinct instead. And when he made that decision, he immediately ousted Zoe not only as his best friend but as a friend altogether. And, because she lost her best friend to you, Frida, Zoe Aves decided from that day to hate you. She may no longer remember the event herself but the fact remains that Zoe now hates you, from a subconscious level. Or rather, what with your death and all, _hated_ you, from a subconscious level."

"Well, that still doesn't explain why she kidnapped Manny now," said Frida. "Even if Zoe wanted to be friends with Manny, I doubt that he would want the same, particularly after he saw her kill me with his own two eyes."

"Agreed; it doesn't make much sense, does it? If she wanted Manny for whatever purposes, then killing you was the wrong way to go about it. As long as Manny Rivera is Manny Rivera, he would never forgive Zoe of that and would be thus useless to her," said Death. "But, I doubt that Zoe wants Manny to be "friends."

"Then what does she want Manny to be?" asked Frida.

"Cuervo loves Manny, Frida. Zoe loves Manny. Remember, all those times that she would make it obvious she had a crush on him?" said an exasperated Death.

"Oh yeah! How did I forget _that_?" said Frida, before it came to her. "But, if Zoe wants Manny because she loves him, then why would she still kill me? If she really loves him, then she would want Manny to love her back. But by killing me, his girlfriend, she just made it impossible for him to love her. Why do it?"

Death shrugged, just as confused as she was.

"Perhaps she believes that she can make Manny love her in turn, in spite of that. I don't know. But what I do know is this: Zoe has brought Manny to her home, against his will, and she is most likely not using her best judgment. This could be bad," said Death.

"Why do you say that Death?" said Frida.

"Well, to Zoe, she had finally defeated her one true enemy: you, Frida. And she now has her spoils, her treasure, Manny. So, if that is the case, then answer me this Frida: What does the homecoming victor do with her spoils?"

Frida shrugged.

"I don't know. What does the victor do with her spoils?"

"She will try to consummate the relationship, just as any true warrior would do. After all, she's only human; she has her desires, her needs. I couldn't honestly even blame her that much for it," said Death, as if such things were commonplace in the world today.

"Consum-what?" said Frida. "What do you mean by that Death?"

"Zoe will probably compromise Manny and find a way to fulfill her love and lust for him," explained Death.

Frida gripped her skull. "Just say what you mean!!"

Death sighed.

"Kids today; they can't just take a hint, can they?" he thought.

"She will, in most probability, try to rape Manny, in some hopes of capturing his heart."

To say that Frida's mouth fell to the floor was an exaggeration would be a lie. She paused, taking this information in carefully, just in case she had somehow misheard Death.

"Three...two…one," thought Death sadly, before the screaming came.

"WHAT!!!???" shrieked Frida so loud that Death had to put his fingers in his ears. "HOW DARE SHE DO THAT!!!!! IF SHE LAYS ONE HAND ON MY MANNY, I'LL KILL HER MYSELF!!!! I'LL TEAR HER LIMB FROM LIMB!!! I'LL MAKE HER REGRET THE DAY I WAS BORN!!! SHE'LL BE BEGGING FOR DEATH BEFORE I'M THROUGH WITH HER!!! THAT LITTLE BITCH!! WHO'S SHE CALLING A WHORE, THAT SHITTY SLUT!!!"

"Frida!" shouted Death, as Frida continued to curse Zoe's very soul.

"IF SHE THINKS SHE'S FELT WRATH YET, SHE'LL PISS HERSELF SILLY WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON HER!!! THAT LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT!! …

And so on. Frida screamed, shouted and cursed out Zoe's name for well over 10 minutes before Death could even get a word in edgewise.

"Frida! Control yourself!" shouted Death, catching Frida by the sides and shaking her vigorously. Eventually, he stopped, when the girl seemed no longer so inclined to scream her head off.

"What?" she asked quietly, her head downcast. She went quiet then and fell into a low lying crouch. She said nothing, she did nothing. Death had almost been expecting a slap or a punch in the gut, but neither came. But instead, all Frida did was close up and shut down. Somehow, this was worse than the screaming

"Frida?" said Death, putting his hand on the girl's shoulder. She coldly shrugged it off without a word.

Things grew quiet then, in the passageway to the light. Neither of the two spoke, Frida in her numb silence and Death in his patient waiting. The words would come, soon enough. They always did. After all, even after receiving news about something like this, people always found something else to say, somehow recovered. It always varied a little of course but humans, given the right motivation, could recover from anything that came across their path, Death knew.

Eventually, Frida began to speak again.

"Death?" she said, her ethereal arms across her spectral knees.

"Yes, Frida?" said Death as tenderly as he could manage.

"Can I stop it from happening?" she said, looking at her translucent hands as she said so. They weren't the strongest, the most flexible, the prettiest, or the best of hands, Frida knew, but they had always served their purpose, had always been there for her when she needed them. They had always gotten the job done and for that, Frida was grateful for them. But now she need to do something with them that would be possibly the most important thing she had ever done with them and she didn't know if they were any longer capable of doing it.

"Can I stop Zoe from raping Manny? After all, look at me; better yet, look _through_ me. I'm dead. I don't have a body anymore. If I could, I would save Manny from Zoe's clutches a thousand times over and a thousand times then. But I can't touch anything; it goes right through me. The only thing I've been able to touch so far has been you and even then I sometimes go through you. How can I possibly save Manny if I can't even touch him? Death, tell me: is it possible for me to save Manny, being the way I am?"

Death gazed down at the little girl before him. He wasn't entirely sure what to say. Should he tell the truth, or lie again. But then, the last lie failed miserably and Frida wound up like this from it. In the end, Death decided to tell the truth.

"Yes, Frida, yes. It is possible for you to save Manny from his probable fate. I can't tell you how unfortunately. That would be against the Rules. But, it is possible for a soul to affect the physical plane, yes. But, I'm sorry to say, that's not going to happen."

"What!? Why not?" demanded Frida, who suddenly turned against Death. Suddenly the light didn't seem so bright, as wonderful, as it first had when she had entered it. Frida began to see details outside of the light: the physical world. Death frowned unhappily.

"Frida," he said, stretching out his hand, "Once a mortal soul goes down the passageway to light, they aren't allowed to go back. The physical world is behind you; please, come with me."

Frida took a step back. A little more of the physical world came into view.

"No. I'm sorry Death, but I can't," Frida said, before she turned tail and ran out of the light's welcoming fingers and back into the real world.

"Frida! Wait!" shouted Death, stumbling out of the light, but Frida just kept on running.

She ran and she ran, down streets and ally ways. She ran past many of the city's notable sights, like Sun's Tomb and the Cenotaph of the Moon, Bull Plaza, the Miracle City Acropolis and Art and History Museum, which threw Frida off track for a while (she had never known that the Museum was full of so much paintings! Or historical artifacts). She ran past the School, El Casa de Macho, her own house (a pang of pain in her heart there, but there was no time to mourn over that now), among other places. Frida ran as far and as fast as she could, as straight as she could, straight to the home of Zoe Aves.

Wind poured in, out and through her body. She ran as if her soul depended on it. Her ghostly lungs burned from the effort and her legs ached. The corporal memory of what happens to when an ill-exercised human runs across a city was taking its effects. Even when she was alive, Frida had never run this far or this hard before. It would be easier to signal for a cab or hitch a ride, but this was proven impossible for two reasons: one, its hard to signal a cab when you're invisible to everyone, including the cab driver; and two, even when Frida did manage to get into a incoming cab for someone else, when it pulled away, it would drive away with her still hanging where she sat down, sitting in mid-air, before corporal memory set in and she fell to the ground with a soft "oomph!" So, in the end, Frida wound up running the entire way.

Eventually, Frida came to a stop at a street corner, leaning partly against, partly through an opposing building. She panted with ragged breath. The Flock of Furies hideout was still halfway across the city and she didn't know how much time she had before Manny forcibly lost his flower.

"As much as I hate to be a pessimist Frida, I have to say, it's pointless to run," came Death's light voice. Frida spun around and saw him there, as calm and collected as ever, leaning against the building.

"After all, it's _me_ chasing you. Remember, Death, the great inevitable? The one thing no man can run from? Am I ringing any bells?"

"H-how did you, how did y-you-?" asked Frida, her words coming out jumbled and uneven.

"How did I catch up to you so quickly, without you ever even hearing me chasing you? Sorry, that's a trade secret, I can't tell you in case if you run into some other lost soul and told them about it. They might use the knowledge to gain an edge over me, which, while still useless over me, would still be a headache for sure," said Death. "Now, if you'll just come with me…" he said, coming closer to Frida.

"No! Stay away!" shouted Frida, who sprinted away again.

After running a few more blocks, Frida began to feel a little better. She didn't hear or see any sound or sight of Death. Perhaps he was gone for good…?

At the next corner, as Frida ran around it, she collided right into Death and fell back ungraciously on her ass. Death didn't even budge.

"Come one Frida! I don't want to make this an unpleasant experience. I'm just doing my job. I know it's a terrible thing that will happen to Manny but that's life! People suffer from it daily! Life is a bitch, Frida; please, don't make me act like one too. I'd rather not use force, but I will, if necessary."

Frida got up, with some trouble, and glared at Death. Her skirt, which had ridden up her hip, was promptly pushed down with some trouble.

"Death, if you really cared about what happening to Manny, then you'd do something about it, not just stand there! If you want to help Manny, then go to the Flock's hideout and save him! You can do it; you keep popping out of nowhere. I'm sure you can get to the hideout and stop Manny from being raped!"

Death sighed.

"Frida, if that was my job, if helping the living was my job, then yes, I would, without hesitation, go save Manny. Problem is, its not. Instead, it's my job to help the dead cross over into the afterlife. That's it. Whether it be for better or for worse, I'm not allowed to aid the living by any means necessary. I just can't. I wish I could, but I can't. I'm sorry. Now, will you come with me?"

Frida took a step back, then another. She continued to glare at Death with the intensity of a thousand suns. It hurt Death for her to look at him like this, but then, what choice did he have?

"No," she whispered. "No. I won't go with you, Death. I have to save Manny." Then she ran in the other direction. Death sighed. This might take a while.

Soon enough, Frida arrived at the front door of the Flock of Furies hideout, which towered over the nearby buildings and was adorned at the top with an artistically hand-carved eagle head. Just outside the front door waiting for her, Frida found unsurprisingly, was Death. Death turned his head upwards towards the top of the avian structure.

"You know, I never have been able to understand why this place is considered a hideout. I mean, if you _really_ wanted to keep yourself secret, you'd make your hideout as normal and discreet as possible. Instead, they have a giant-ass eagle statute as their freaking roof! It couldn't be any more obvious who lives here!" said Death.

"Um, I think that's the point," said Frida, too looking at the "hideout."

"Yes; they probably made it so obvious, just to say out loud to the world that, 'hey, we are the bad guys, we have cool wrist lasers, and there's nothing you can do about it! And even if you did come and arrest us and confiscated all of our stuff, then we'd just break out and rebuild! Baw ha ha ha ha ha.' That sort of thing."

"Yeah," agreed Frida.

The two stood there, eyes gazing at the Flock of Furies hideout, never saying a word. It was pointless to do so now anyways. Still, Death decided to give it one last try.

"I don't suppose I can convince you to come with me, can I?" he said outwardly hopefully, as despair filled his heart.

"Nope. Nothing. I have to go in there and save Manny, with or without your help."

"Sorry. Rules are rules. Can't break up, even if I wanted to, and God! Do I want to."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Me too."

"Well then. Better get going in there. Um, Death, before I go in," said Frida.

"Yes?" said Death calmly.

"Do you…do you know if there's… still time?" she asked.

"I'm omnipresent, Frida. I'm everywhere in the universe, every where that an organism, an individual, can die. I'm not just here, standing beside you, begging you to come with me to the afterlife but I'm also on the other side of the world, helping the souls of people dying from famine, pestilence, war, and the like. I'm half-way across the universe, gathering the souls of a planet desolated by a super volcano coupled with a deadly asteroid strike. But I'm not omniscient. I don't know everything in the universe. Anything that has to do with death, I'm aware of, but only in the broadest of ways; I'm able to scrap pieces and bits of information together and get a general idea of the world. I may understand secrets and knowledge of this world, of this universe, that would curl your toes but I couldn't honestly tell you what is happening, detail by detail, right now, in say Brooklyn, or Tokyo or Moscow. I'm can't be whole-heartedly certain. I'm sorry that I can't tell you more than that."

"Well then, can you scrap together what is going on in the Flock's headquarters then?" asked Frida painfully.

"Hm," said Death. "Well, I can tell you that there are at least 2 life forms inside."

"Anything else? Are they doing the nasty, right now?"

"Frida, such language!" said Death kiddingly, giving Frida friendly push on the shoulder.

"Death!" urged Frida.

"All right, all right, I'll check," said Death, putting his hand on his head and tilting it to the left. And after the longest pause, Death said, "No. I do not sense the copulation of new life being created in the hideout. Luckily you got here just in time to…" started Death.

"Then I'm going in!" said Frida, and she charged the front door of the hideout.

There was a sound, a strange one, one that most people will never hear in their life. It's not a common sound by any means, but if it had to be described, it would sound like something small, fast, and blue-haired bouncing off of a hard, gelatinous surface and landing on its cute little ass.

"Oomph!" went Frida, as she landed on her ass.

"…just in time to be repelled by the Flock of Furies' ghost shield," finished Death blandly. He stuck his hand down towards Frida. "Need a hand?"

Frida batted the personification's hand away.

"I don't need your charity," she said, getting up on her own. She stared long and hard at the Flock's doorway and finally went to the door and tried to push her hand against it. Just as her fingers got less than two inches to the doorway however, a pale green force stopped her hand. Frida pushed harder the force wouldn't give. At last, Frida took both hands and putting her heels into it, pushed against the door with all her might. The force field didn't even budge.

Frida took a few steps back in puzzlement and tried to figure out what was happening. She quickly gave up and turned her head to Death.

"What the hell is that?" she asked, pointing to the doorway and the green force field, which disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared.

Death shook his head.

"Do you remember what I said before, about corporal memory? And how, because you expect to feel pain, you actually feel it, when you really shouldn't?" said Death, as Frida nodded. "Well the same kind of thing applies here: someone is expecting a force field to repel you, a soul, away from this home and so, you are."

Puzzlement written on her face, Death elaborated. "You see, in a town like Miracle City, where century-old skeletons can summon skeleton banditos and blue-faced zombies are a minority group, its not strange for people to be superstitious. And by people, I mean Zoe's grandmother, Lady Gobbler, who has placed several occult items. And, like with corporal memory, Lady Gobbler has faith in these items; she believes, with all of her avarice-ridden, shriveled, encrusted heart that these items will keep the bad things away, like vampires, ghouls and ghosts. And, seeing as how you are a soul that is still present on the physical plane, that entails you, Frida; as far as the mystic emblems are concerned, you are a ghost and are forbidden entry through this doorway and this entire house without either the consent of the owner of the occult symbols or a source of really, really, _really_ powerful magic."

Frida, bemused by this, looked at Death curiously, almost like a kitten stares at a small squeaking toy mouse. A smile began to crawl along her face.

"And before you ask, as I can see it on your eyes and your face, no Frida, I can't get you in there," said Death tiredly.

"But why!?" she exclaimed, nudging Death in the side. "You're death itself! You should be able to break through the belief of an 80-some old woman!"

"But that doesn't mean that I'm allowed to! Yes, if I wanted, I could shatter that force field of sheer faith in an instance, but I can't! It's against the Rules! If I went around and started to shatter people's belief in things, then where would humanity be, huh? If I, the personification of death, went and broke apart the living like that, I would become something I'm not! It would totally mess with the order of things! It's Life and the people in it and the circumstances of the universe that shatter people's beliefs! Even the inevitability of death can shatter someone's beliefs. But not me myself, no! It would go against everything that I am, everything I stand for! Please don't ask me to do something that I cannot do Frida; if you do, it would just make it all the more worse!" burst out Death, hands in the air, gripped as if they held some ferocious, vile, despicable demons from the depths of hell.

"Can't, or won't?" said Frida coldly, her gaze penetrating through Death like frozen needles.

"Please Frida," said Death, on his knees. "Don't ask me to do something I'm not, do not."

"Then tell me, Mr. Death, what am I supposed to do, huh?" demanded Frida, her finger thrusting toward the towering building before them. "In this hideout, are both the love of my life and my worst enemy, who is apparently going to take the virginity of my Manny, by force! Not only am I dead and probably couldn't stop her to start with but I can't even reach them to stop it in the first place! What am I supposed to do, just let it happen? Just accept and move on to the other side? Sorry, not this girl, no way! Caring angel of death or not, I won't go until I'm sure that Manny is safe from that slutty bitch!"

Death looked at Frida, for the last time, with tears in his eyes. Even though he looked all to the world little under 20, Frida could see that beneath it all, that underneath, Death was much older than he looked. Much older. In fact, he looked older than anything she had ever seen in her entire life. It didn't matter if he still had tight, youthful if pale skin. It didn't matter if he kept his sight and looked like he was carved from marble; Death looked old in ways that Frida couldn't describe. He was old, underneath all of that flesh, and with that age, was the pain of thousands of lifetimes come and gone.

If she was in a more passive mind right then, Frida would have forgiven Death of all of it, of all of the things he was trying to pull away from and would have gone to the other side with him, just so she didn't have to see that old face again. However, this was not the case and when Death, in all of his internally aged-self and sorrow, took hold of her shoulder in a soft but firm grip, with determination also now crackling in his eyes like fire, Frida could only come up with one response: her phantom lower right limb, her pale blue leg, rose up between Death's legs and connected with the very top of the bridge between the two limbs. There was a muffled sound of ghostly flesh connecting with flesh and a short, tight groan and Death went down like a sack of potatoes. And Frida, turned around, and without looking back once, ran and ran and ran. Where to, neither Death nor she knew, but one thing was for certain: she had to get out of there, to find someway of getting through Lady Gobbler's force field of belief.

Death, on the ground and on his face, gave another groan, his hands on his crotch. Stars flew behind his eyes and he was in his own little hell of masculinity and testosterone. It wasn't often that he felt actual physical pain, since most personifications don't, but whenever he did feel physical pain, Death internally noted, it was in times of the most inconvenience and in supple quantities.

Damn. Damn damn, shit, damn. Crap. How did he let her get away? Why did he let her get away? It wasn't like it was infrequent that souls tried to run from him, as if they could escape their fates. So had this one gotten away? Honestly, Death couldn't answer that question and this annoyed him to no ends.

In the midst of his pain, Death felt the same familiar presence that he did before, when he and Frida had stepped into the passage of light, which gave a none-too-gentle mental push on Death's backside. He tried to ignore it and instead turned towards the process of pain that kept flowing throughout his lower regions. However, as Death knew it would, the presence presisted until he finally decided that he might as well gratify it his attention. Death picked up his face as much as he could will remaining on the ground and turned towards the presence.

It was a small ball of infintitely bright light, hovering just out of his reach. It was a servant, of sorts: it accompanied Death on every reaping and acted as the portal to the hereafter, yet, unlike most servants, the orb didn't serve Death underneath directly; instead, it was a servant of Life, Death's opposite twin, who by Life's orders worked aside Death, transporting the recently deceased into the Afterlife, Life's other realm, a realm that none but the dead have seen and which no mortal can ever know of. The orb, which had no true name, could be considered by some as the Light at the End of the Tunnel and perhaps it was.

The Light hung there in the air, like a distant star in the night sky, faceless in its shapeless brillance, and somehow gave Death the impression that it was frowning disapprovingly at him. It fluttered a little when it spoke to Death in words not meant for the ears of mortals, in words that bypassed the ears entirely and was sent directly to the brain, who turned his head curiously at the ball of light's reappraising tone.

"Excuse me? Oh, the girl. Frida? Yes yes, sorry I couldn't collect her properly. Don't worry, we'll catch her the next time around. Now, forgive my rudeness but,I have something more important onhand, so if you'll excuse me," said Death impatiently, who returned to his own private hellhole of pain.

The orb fluttered again, this time with a doubtful tone.

"What? Of course I was going to bring to the other side! What makes you think I wouldn't have? I've always filled out my quota, ever since the beginning of time itself! Why would I suddenly decide to let this one slip away?"

The orb made an unheard, accusing suggestion.

"Felt sorry for her? Of course I felt sorry for her! She had just died an awful death! And what with Manny's situation…" paused Death, before continuing. "You can't blame me for sympathizing with her, if only a little. and we still shoveled them into the afterworld. Why now, of all times, give one random-joe some slack, huh?

The orb impossibly shrugged and continued its accusations.

"But that doesn't mean I would have let her escape because of that! Not intentionally, anyways. I think," said Death, a little self-doubtingly, before turning back to the orb. "Besides, you don't have a perfect record either."

The orb made the unseen gesture that it was offended by such an allegation.

"Don't tell me you don't remember; you remember _everything_. With that pretty waitress? The one who accidently died from a improperly

The orb made it clear that it had no idea what Death was talking about.

"Oh, come on! You know, that waitr

The orb .

Death laughed a little. The pain was almost gone now; not only had time dissipated the pain but since Frida was no longer the next client, Death's body was again changing to meet their expectations, which thankfully didn't involve a male's sex organs. Death guessed that, when Frida expected for death personified to be a handsome teenage Goth boy with a fragrant body odor, that she expected the full package and not just a boy's face and muscles but his family jewels as well.

"Either way, you didn't have a chance with her, what with your lack of gender or even a humanoid body and her tastes in the fairer sex; it would never last! So get over it already, alright?" said Death, trying to get on the Light's good side.

Death stood up and looked thoughtfully at the orb. The orb asked what he was going to do with Frida's runaway soul. A small black kitten, the same one that had bolted when Black Cuervo attacked, casually strolled by and rubbed itself affectionately against Death's leg. Without taking his eyes from the orb, Death bent down and picked up the mammal with care and began to rub its stomach with all of the tender warmth and care of a mother. The kitten purred contently, closing its eyes in contentment.

"Oh, let's not worry about it too much, eh?" Death said with a shrug of the shoulders, as he, with the cat, and the Light stepped off into the reality just beyond the eye's edge of sight and the cusp of human hearing. "After all, she will only go so far; she's only putting the inevitable off anyways. Whether she saves Manny's virginity or not doesn't matter, because, at 12:00 midnight tonight, when Manny finally becomes a man at the hands of a lust-driven young woman or Frida somehow pulls off a miracle and saves him at the last minute, then her soul will be ready to come with us. Either way, we can't lose.

The orb asked if he believed if Frida would somehow find a way to save Manny. Death gave another shrug. His finger moved upwards toward the kitten's ears, scratching them absentmindedly.

"Damned if I know," he said with a small smile. "But then again, this is the city of miracles. Maybe Frida will pull a rabbit out of the hat and save the little guy after all. I just hope that she does it the right way."

The orb, curious what Death meant by that. The cat, curious about Death's fingers, began to sniff Death's fore finger, which was becoming increasingly skeletal by ever passing moment.

"You know was well as I do; in this city, this city of miracles, there are both light and dark forces at work. Frida needs some of the most powerful magic in existence to break through Lady Gobbler's iron belief and to do that, she can either make parlay with the forces of good or evil, correct?"

The orb, with a sharp dip, nodded. The kitten, sated with attention, quickly jumped out of Death's arms and at a healthy trot went down the street and around the corner. Death sadily watched it go; he was rather fond of cats.

"Well, if that be the case, let's hope that Frida meets the right people to help her and doesn't wind up making a deal with the devil. That would make things… _messy_, for us to clean up."

Death's silhouette is the last thing to disappear into the next reality, leaving a tall, dark, grinning shadow of his "true self." It wasn't an unpleasant grin, but then, it wasn't a pleasant grin either. It was the sort of grin that the wearer makes when they don't have any other choice but grin; it was a specter grin, the grin of a skull, the grin of Death. He alone made it work and damn! he looked good in it.

* * *

I've spent close to two months thinking and rethinking this chapter over and over in my head. And now that I put it on paper, its even longer than I thought it would be. It shows, doesn't it?

Moreno isn't Frida's real middle name; as far as I know, she doesn't have one. I just thought that Frida Suarez was too short for my purposes and so I just picked a Spanish surname I liked on some website.

I honestly don't know much of Miracle City's locations and I don't have the time or patience to watch enough episodes to get any specific locations (can't seem to find any of them online) , so I decided to write some parodies of famous places in Mexico City instead, which is probably the city Miracle City is based on anyways.

Kindly review


End file.
